


Sunlight

by newisalwaysbetter



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Emotions, Established Relationship Garcy, F/M, Flirting, Happy Ending, Implied Aroallo!Flynn, Lucy and Flynn are getting a dog, M/M, Modern Day No Rittenhouse, Multi, POV Flynn, QPR!Garcy, Softness, Wyatt works at an animal shelter, discussions of fate, eye contact conversations, flynn is an awkward idiot as usual, garcy plus wyatt equals garcyatt, mild language warning, slightly more evolved wyatt than canon, these three will be the end of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 06:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20737376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newisalwaysbetter/pseuds/newisalwaysbetter
Summary: Alternate Subtitle: Lucy And Flynn Find A Happy Puppy (And Also Adopt A Dog)(Originally written for the "walk" prompt for Mental Health Whump, and also included in that work.)





	Sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic was originally written for the Mental Health Whump challenge, and is still included in that work elsewhere on my profile, I thought it was good enough to deserve its own spot, so people could find it. Mild warning for language, but otherwise it's all fluff and emotions. Enjoy, friends. :)

They’re standing together in the animal shelter when Lucy’s hand slips into Flynn’s and squeezes hard.

Flynn scans the little room for stressors. Their current room doesn’t seem small enough to set off Lucy’s claustrophobia, but there’s no way of telling, really. He cocks one subtle eyebrow at her, grateful for the contact albeit confused. This strange, soft thing between them is only slowly becoming physical, and Lucy had been particularly quiet since he’d picked her up that morning. He intends to ask outright, soon; in the meantime, he’s privately hoping that she’s not getting cold feet about their new acquaintance.

Said acquaintance pads down the hall at this moment, all sleepy blue eyes and soft, athletic limbs. 

He’s got their dog with him, too. 

Robert is a black-and-white Australian Shepherd rescue with a generous ruff, a bad leg, and a corresponding penchant for being carried. Wyatt is an ex-Special Forces pretty boy whose soft features are framed by a prickly jaw and a buzzed fade, and under his soft green crewneck, enough strength to support the sixty-five pounds of excitable canine squirming in his arms.

Wyatt looks up, razor-blue eyes flashing, and an easy smirk curls his mouth. “Miss Preston.” A nod of playful mock-respect. “Mr. Flynn, sir.”

The pull towards Wyatt is magnetic, but Flynn finds himself frozen in place. His hand around Lucy’s is like a vise. “Wyatt,” Lucy says breathlessly, and drags both of them forwards. She’s practically bouncing, and Flynn feels…something.

It’s a strange, bittersweet joy, he realizes. Wyatt and Lucy look at each other like they’re seeing the sun for the first time.

Then Wyatt turns the sunlight on him, too, and even with the safe distance of the dog between them, Flynn licks his lips.

“Robbie here’s glad you came back for him.” Wyatt ducks his head to pet the dog, his floppy fringe falling into his face. Robert’s tail is flapping.

“W–we couldn’t stay away.” The words spill out of Lucy with uncharacteristic ease. She’s tripping over her sentences and twinkling like a star, and Flynn finds himself, even after all this time, stealing smiles in her direction. She’s so rarely like this.

When Lucy reaches out to Robert, he _ruffs_ happily and laps at Lucy’s hand, and she giggles. “He wanted to do that earlier, but, y’know.” Wyatt shrugs. “I told the poor guy to wait until the second date.”

Lucy laughs. So does Wyatt. (Flynn likes him immensely.)

All of which is increasingly difficult to hide when Wyatt’s blue gaze flickers over their joined hands. Flynn frowns. Although coupled, his relationship with Lucy is hardly traditional, and the last thing Flynn wants is for Wyatt to believe they exist in a place that he can’t enter. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Wyatt,” Flynn manages to bite out. His voice is a little gruffer than he intends; it’s not the first time they’ve met, but Flynn is acutely aware that it’s the first time they’ve stood so close. He clears his throat, tries for a little of the easy banter they’ve carried on a few times before. “Looking scruffy, as always.”

“Hey, with role models like this guy?” Wyatt grins and hefts Robert a little in his arms. “Can’t say you blame me.”

The hint of a smile plays around Flynn’s eyes. “You should get out more.”

“Why?” Bending over to let Robert down, Wyatt glances up at them from knee height. “Who’s asking?”

“We, we were thinking of taking Robert for a walk across the street,” Lucy says, hurriedly, “before we take him home.” She takes Robert’s leash from Wyatt’s hand, and hers lingers for a moment. “Maybe you’d like to join us?”

_Us._ Even now, Flynn can hardly believe it.

For a second, Wyatt’s eyes soften, as if with memory. But it passes like a storm, and he waves them off. “I wouldn’t wanna…intrude.”

Flynn shoots Lucy a quick look that says, all at once, _Why would you bring this idiot into our lives,_ and _Please don’t let him leave_.

“You wouldn’t be,” Lucy says, a little too quickly, and flashes her eyes at Flynn. “Right?”

“We’d like you to join us,” Flynn clarifies, blunt as a butter knife.

“Right.” Wyatt’s biting his lip, glancing back and forth between them. “Yeah, I could use a walk.” He glances down. “So could Robbie too, I bet. Just…lemme check with my supervisor, one sec.”

When he’s gone, Lucy tugs on Flynn’s hand, hissing insistently, “You need to reach out to him.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” Flynn’s teasing is gentle, and Lucy blushes furiously. 

“You don’t have to do…like me.” Lucy rubs her thumb over his knuckles. “Just whatever feels natural.” Her dark eyes seem to reach inside him. “I _know_ you understand me, Flynn.”

Flynn makes a little sound of stubborn irritation, but Wyatt is returning, so he just squeezes Lucy’s hand. She squeezes back, and it says, _I am making a space for you, if you want it._

As the three of them cross the street towards the little city park, Robert trots ahead as far as his leash will allow, straining gently towards the spread of green. Lucy smiles, and Wyatt falls in step beside her. “We weren’t sure Robbie here would ever get adopted, so I spent plenty of time with him.” Wyatt shoves his hands in his pockets, tosses his head at her puppyishly. I’m happy to brief you on him, if you like.” 

“Brief me, huh?” Lucy glances over her shoulder at Flynn, who is walking just behind them, watching their backs. He gives her a soft nod that says, _I’m fine right where I am._

“What made you pick ol’ Robbie, anyway?”

“It was Flynn’s idea.” Lucy looks back again, in that encouraging way of hers. “He looked at Robert and just…knew. Like it was fate, I guess.”

(While that is an accurate summary of events, Flynn senses that she’s not just talking about the dog.)

Wyatt snorts softly, and Lucy wrinkles her nose at him. “What’s that about?”

“_Fate_. It never did a damn thing for me, you know that?” Wyatt shakes his head, and–yes, definitely looks back, catches Flynn’s gaze. “I just…can’t put myself in the hands of something I can’t trust.”

“I can understand that,” Lucy says softly.

There is something here, between the two of them, that Flynn will never touch. Flynn knows it, Lucy knows it, and if Wyatt doesn’t know already, he will soon enough. But Flynn knows enough about his own heart to yearn to say, _You would be safe in my hands_.

(He’s never said that to Lucy. He isn’t sure he ever will.)

Robert becomes occupied examining a suspicious rock, and as the three of them come to an abrupt stop, Flynn realizes they have reached the center of the park. The wilderness around him is an unfamiliar one, but not unlovely.

“What about you, Flynn?” Wyatt turns to face him completely now. “Was it fate, or just birds of a feather?” He grins pointedly at Robert, who is nosing around a well-rusted fire hydrant.

Talking to Wyatt often feels as though Flynn is edging ever closer to a precipice; he’s in complete control, but the wind sings in his ears. “I _am_ a fool for excitable things.” He aims the comment at Lucy–plausible deniability–but there’s a little intake of breath on Wyatt’s part nonetheless.

“But you never answered the question,” Lucy points out. “Do you…you know, believe in fate?”

Flynn’s unspoken response is communicated entirely with a careful twisting of eyebrows. _I cannot believe you are making me do this, here._

She arches one plucked brow in response._ All I’m asking is your honesty._

Robert spots a squirrel, or perhaps the ghost of one, on the other side of the park, and as they begin to walk again, Lucy and Wyatt part for him easily. Flynn finds himself, without meaning to, walking between the two of them. He gives the truest answer he knows. “I would like to.”

Lucy smiles and bumps his shoulder affectionately, and Wyatt nods faintly into the middle distance, as though he’s just found the answer to a question.

They let Robert off his leash in the middle of the park. (Wyatt, it seems, has never been much for rules, and while Lucy is initially hesitant, Flynn finds himself encouraging this course of action. Lucy becomes far more eager when she realizes it’s an excuse to leave Wyatt and Flynn alone. Flynn would almost call her pleasure catlike if she weren’t so obvious about it.) When Lucy is a safe distance away, tossing Robert a tennis ball that Wyatt seems to have magically produced from his pocket, Flynn interrupts their watching by breaking suddenly in with, “Give me your phone?”

Wyatt blinks at him, but shrugs and hands it over. Flynn is momentarily waylaid–his number, or Lucy’s? Entering his own seems a risk, but on Lucy’s orders he takes it anyway, and there’s no way to miss Wyatt’s surprised beam when he hands it back, with a new contact for _Garcia Flynn._ “Lucy and I take Friday dinners at Casey’s, on Grand. Give me a call, and I’ll make it a reservation for three. Lucy…” Flynn shoves his hands in his pockets, suddenly feeling evasive. “Lucy would like to see you again.”

Wyatt’s brow furrows, but he’s smiling carefully into Flynn’s eyes, as though seeking permission there. Flynn observes him in return; what Wyatt says next is as important as what he doesn’t.

“_Lucy_ would like to, huh?”

Flynn releases a chuckling breath. He’s smarter than Flynn had reckoned, this one. The words are said with such buoyant lightness that they could be a joke or a question, though what’s being asked Flynn never knows. 

Dammit, he’s making Lucy do the asking next time. (If there _is_ a next time. Having two bright-eyed idiots twinkling in his direction might be the end of him.)

“Hmm; I suppose Robbie might like to see you, as well. If you’ve spent so much time together…” 

Wyatt nods, his mouth twisting in amusement, and glances over at Lucy. “Am I ever going to know what’s going on with you two?”

Flynn’s eyelids lower a fraction. “Come to dinner, and find out.”

“Fair enough.” Wyatt offers his hand. Flynn could shake it easily enough, he knows, pretend this was Lucy’s idea, maintain the safe distance between them. You have to know you’re afraid to want something before you can know you want it.

Luckily for Wyatt, Lucy took Flynn into her hands not so very long ago, and that was when everything changed. 

So instead, Flynn closes Wyatt’s right hand in his left one. 

Still, when Flynn murmurs _C’mon_ and tugs gently, his fear must show in his eyes, because Wyatt gives him a smile like stardust, and situates his warm hand more firmly there. Wyatt’s touch is unfamiliar but not painful, and he lets Flynn lead him further into this strange between-place, back to where Lucy is waiting.


End file.
